1:32 Su-27UB Ukrainian 2nd Gen Curved Camo Bort “69” Paint Mask set

Bort 69 in a large format

In 1:32 this machine has over half a meter of span and becomes a piece that demands a place of its own on a shelf. With size, however, the demand on the precision of the masking grows too: what passes in a small scale as a minor inaccuracy is here visible from the other end of the room. The curved pattern wraps around the fuselage in long irregular curves, and marking it out by hand with tape takes more time than the whole build of the airframe.

The gray-blue range

Prepare three steps from the lightest blue-gray through a middle tone to the darkest, which comes close to slate. Anyone building from a particular photograph will add a fourth, very light shade for the lower surfaces. Then an opaque color for the number on the fuselage. In a large scale it pays to mix straight away twice what you estimate, as topping the mixture up in the middle of the work leads to a visible difference.

Where to start

• Glue both cockpits and their glazing and mask the whole canopy.
• Close off the engine intakes and the nozzles, otherwise overspray will get into them.
• Sand down the long spine joint between the rear sections of the fuselage.
• Spray a uniform ground, so that the shades do not differ according to the color of the plastic beneath them.

The long wavy strips of the set have to be laid in one piece and not in sections, otherwise the curve breaks. Always start seating them in the middle of their length and work toward both ends at once. At the transition from wing to fuselage, where the surface is most warped, warming the piece slightly helps. Keep the pressure while spraying lower than you are used to on large surfaces; a curved edge takes noticeably less than a straight one.